


Super. Lucid.

by STEREO_FUTURE



Category: Palaye Royale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Superpowers, Surreal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23735317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STEREO_FUTURE/pseuds/STEREO_FUTURE
Summary: A story of three superpowered brothers.
Kudos: 11





	Super. Lucid.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a prequel to a scrapped series. It's pretty short, but I hope you like it! -S//F

One year and four months earlier. 

Sebastian knocked loudly on the bathroom door, "Em, come out!"

Emerson was sketching on the toilet seat with a sharpie. "Leave me alone."

"What are you even doing in there? It's been three fucking hours!"

"I said, leave me alone!"

Sebastian grunted and got his jacket.

Remington saw him and asked, "Where are you going?"

Sebastian fixed his hair in the mirror while he answered, "Out to find a decent bathroom."

Later on, a concerned Remington knocked on the door, "Em. It's dinner time now. You've been in there for six hours."

No reply.

"Em? I know you're hungry. Come out now. Please."

Silence. Rem pushed his ear against the door. No movement inside.

Remington felt a pang of fear and called out to his older brother. "Seb. Something's wrong."

Sebastian walked closer. "What?"

"It's Emerson. It's like he's not in there anymore."

Things got dead serious. Sebastian commanded, "Get the EMF."

Remington ran into his room to look for the thing in his drawer. Sebastian tried the door knob. It was still locked. There was no other way out. He kicked down the door. No Emerson. Only his sharpie drawings and writings that filled the walls and the floor and the ceiling. It's an unbelievable sight. 

Remington returned with a handheld radio-like device called Electromagnetic Field Detector (or EMF meter) to locate Emerson when he's on another dimension. Remington pulled the antennae out and waved the meter around the bathroom. It repeatedly beeped out loud . 

A sigh of relief came out of Rem. "Ok, Em." Remington looked like he was talking to nobody, and he thought out loud, "Sheesh, this feels like praying to God or something."

Remington started again, "Emerson. Please. Come back. I know it feels safe down there, but you're safer here. With us."

_Emerson heard the beeping and, out of annoyance, floated away._

The EMF detector slowly stopped beeping. "Shit!" Rem waved it around once more.

Meanwhile, Seb called someone on the phone.

Remington saw him and shouted, "What the fuck are you doing?! We are losing himー!!"

Sebastian, with guilt in his chest, used his ability to mute his brother. When the person on the other end finally picked up, he spoke, "Hello, it's Seb. I need to talk to your cousin. …Rod. Yeah. …No time for that! We have an emergency! …I think Emerson got stuck in the Void." Sebastian grew more frustrated with every word. "…Yes, he's missing! …Alright." And he gave them their address. He put the phone down and faced Rem, "Fill the tub with water."

Remington, still muted, shouted without a sound, "What?!"

Seb unmuted him. "Just do as I tell you!"

Rem pointed at him, "There should be a good reason for this." and ran to the bathroom, device still in hand, and ran the water.

_At the parallel plane, Emerson saw a glimmering object from afar. He swam closer to it. It looked like a shiny coin. He tried to reach it, but it floated further away. He swam deeper into space and stretched his arm a bit more…_

As the two brothers waited for the person Sebastian called for, and the tub to be filled, Rem continued to wave the device around their house, still hoping to find a sign of their brother.

_In the infinite darkness, as Emerson's curious fingers were about to grab the elusive coin, a strong light came from the object, and everything turned white. A sense of panic had hit him. He couldn't see his arm. Nor his other arm. Nor any part of him. He had lost his physical shell. He was merely a floating consciousness._

The device still wasn't beeping. "Sh*t. I can't sense him…" Remington began to get suspicious with Sebastian, "Who was that…person you talked to?"

Seb replied while still staring at the running water, "A cousin of an ex of mine. He's a "water medium"."

Rem raised an eyebrow, "The f*ck is that?"

Seb continued, "He can contact the dead through water. He can also find lost items and pull them out of the water."

Remington shook his head a bit. "So?"

"He's the only chance we've got. Or at least, the only one I can think of right now."

As the tub was three-fourths full, the doorbell rang. Seb opened the front door and immediately let the bearded man in a gray coat in.

The guy briskly walked to the scene. "Did you use the meter?"

"Yes", Seb answered him, "but we lost him a while ago. We don't know how many hours he has been in there. Please. Bring him back."

"I have done this with missing persons," he paused, "but I haven't done this with someone or somethin' from the Void. Don't worry, I'm gunna try. You know this comes with a hefty price."

"I don't care how much; it's my brother's life."

"Good. Now you be quiet while I do this." Rod then sat down on the tiled floor and focused his whole mind on the tub. Ten minutes felt like an hour for the brothers. The water began to vibrate…

.

_"Where am I?! Am I still inside the Void?" The calm and comfort of the darkness became pure, bleak Nothingness, and Emerson was slowly ceasing to exist. "Have I reached the end?"_

_The white space gradually turned into smoke, in the hue of a flame. The smell of sulfur engulfed him. Thoughts raced in his mind, "I'm not supposed to be in this place!" He tried to swim to find a way back into the darkness, but the space around him became hot and dense, slowing him down. Hope was draining away from him._

_The orange smoke dissipated and everything turned into an almost blinding combination of colors, some of the frequencies no human being have ever witnessed before. He heard his mother and his brothers speak. Or rather, he heard every single sentence that was spoken inside their house for the last few years, all coming together, forming onto a deafening noise. He cried out, "I've got to get back. Please, let me go back!" He tried desperately to make portals back to the living world._

_He did succeed in creating a portal, but it did not connect to the plane of the living. Instead, various things came out from it. Thousands of flowers burst out, but wilted and became ash as they fell closer to Emerson. Poems of lovers and of melancholy came out, but scrambled themselves into random letters. Dozens of empty wooden frames, the size of buildings, scattered and passed through him. Dread completely swallowed him._

_From all sides around him, giant images of his sharpie sketches and everything he had written on the walls and on the floor of the bathroom raced towards him like speeding vehicles. ___

__He immediately rose up inside the tub and gasped for air as he felt water on him. He was alive again. Still in shock, he looked around and saw his brothers. Remington tightly clutched Em's shivering hand, as Sebastian wrapped him in a dry towel. Emerson tightly embraced his brothers for a long minute._ _

__._ _

__Emerson's brothers helped him calm down and dry up. Remington helped him stand up and walk out of the tub. He was still dripping wet and shaking._ _

__The two struggled to go upstairs as Emerson slouched and dragged his feet because of mental fatigue. In his messy artist's room, Remington helped him get dressed in pajamas. Not a word was said._ _

__Emerson sprawled on his huge bed. Aside from acting almost lifeless, he looked totally normal._ _

__Remington placed his hand on Emerson's forehead to check his temperature. Thankfully, he wasn't brewing a fever. Remington tucked him in. "I'll get you some food. Be right back."_ _

__

__Emerson smiled and softly croaked, "Thank you."_ _

__"You want some music?"_ _

__Emerson nodded, "Piaf...Please."_ _

__Remington placed the disc on the record player, turned it on and put down the needle on it. The calming tune of La Vie En Rose by French theater nightingale Édith Piaf played. Emerson closed his eyes._ _

__

__Sebastian felt exhausted but relieved, and half-hugged the guy, "Oh, Rod! I can't thank you enough!"_ _

__Rod carefully pushed him away, "That's because a thank you is not enough." Rod pulled out a pen and wrote something on a piece of paper that he got from his coat pocket. After signing it, he handed it to Sebastian._ _

__Sebastian read the numbers and became pale. "You've got to be kidding me. Umm, don't I get a discount? For being...a family friend?"_ _

__"That is the discounted price," Rod nodded. "Although you don't have to pay right now. You could pay it in twelve installments, monthly", Rod doubted they could pay at all, so out of pity, he added, "or whenever you can."_ _

__Sebastian gulped. Remington butted in, "Hey, let me see."_ _

__Seb hid the paper from his brother. He inhaled deeply and thought, "Well, compared to my brother's life, this should be nothing." He ran the numbers in his head, computing how many shows they have to play to get that much money._ _

__His thoughts were interrupted by Rod, who spoke as he pulled out a couple of brochures from the same pocket, "By the way, you might be interested in this." He handed them out._ _

__Remington scanned the front cover, "A university?"_ _

__Rob explained, "They're opening a new college in town, for super kids with the guts. It's part of the government's new system."_ _

__It piqued Remington's curiosity, "Is it like, real school? Math and Science shit?"_ _

__"Nah. It's where kids like you could hone your abilities. Or maybe tone them down. Depends." Rod explained further, "If you ask me, I think Emerson needs to learn to control his powers more effectively. That's not all. Guess what," Rod pointed out the segment at the end of the page of brochure, "when you finish the program and become listed as an official superhero, they give you a huge monthly salary. You don't even have to do nothing! You just graduate an' they pay you."_ _

__Remington cringed. "Superhero? Like, they recruit us to take down criminals? Sounds like too much of a responsibility."_ _

__"Like I said, it's just a list. You don't have to do nothing if you want to."_ _

__Seb became invested in it, too. "Is this program free? How long is it gonna take?"_ _

__"A hundred percent free for early enrollees, a small allowance included. Two years, two days a week. If they see something special in him, he can finish it in one year."_ _

__Sebastian nodded. Then he faced his brother. "Remington, why don't you go to school with Emerson?"_ _

__Rem raised an eyebrow. Being fatally injured and freakishly healing and getting up instantly in the eyes of the public is clearly not his favorite thing. "Because I...don't want to?!"_ _

__Seb raised his eyebrow higher. Remington opened his eyes wider and angrier, and challenged him in a low voice, "Why don't you?!"_ _

__Seb moved his face closer to Remington's and whispered, "Do you actually think I could save the world by shutting people's mouths?"_ _

__Remington was tempted to say yes just to provoke his brother, but he couldn't think of a clever reason._ _

__

__Sebastian faced Rod once more, pursed his lips and faked a smile. With his sharp chin up, he told him, "We'll think about it."_ _

__"Well, you got plenty of time to think. The school doesn't open till next year... I gotta go."_ _

__He turned away. Seb followed him and opened the front door like a real gentleman. "Thanks, Rod."_ _

__"Like I said, a thank you is not enough. I pay taxes, too, y'know." And just like that, Rod walked home._ _

__-END-_ _


End file.
